New Paper on NOCs in New Oil Hotspots

Patrick Heller and I have just published a paper on strategies for managing National Oil Companies in new oil-producing countries and hotspots for oil exploration. It challenges some generally accepted governance advice for low capacity emerging producers.

These governments face daunting challenges: Which body do they make responsible for licensing, regulation and monitoring: the National Oil Company, a ministry or a separate regulatory agency? Traditional analysis has often advocated a strict separation of powers, building on the success achieved by countries like Norway. Our research looks specifically into the experiences of countries trying to develop nascent oil sectors amid limited technical and institutional capacity, to assess which models have best promoted accountability and good economic and technical performance. Among the case study countries are Ghana, Brazil, Liberia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We hope that the paper will be of particular value to policy-makers in countries currently reflecting on institutional arrangements to govern new or growing oil sectors, and to technical assistance providers who work with those policy-makers.